In the recent last few decades the changing of needs and demands of public administration has been leading to a progressive abandonment and an underutilization of the public real estate. At the same time, local authorities have to manage additional assets because of the divestment process related to the implementation of the “Federalismo Demaniale” law. The needs to incur costs related to the maintenance and the management of abandoned buildings, as well as to provide new ways to use them, represent some critical issues for the local public administrations. However, many of these public assets could be used as strategic items in the enhancement process of the cities (Manzo, 2005). Indeed, these assets provide significant opportunities for city enhancement thanks to their strategic geographical locations and their architectural and cultural characteristics. The abandonment condition, caused by the long lead times needed for the activation and the development of the enhancement processes, increases the degree of decay of this public real estate and its maintenance costs. Concurrently, it decreases the possibility to make cost-effective maintenance interventions and in general it reduces the possibility to plan, in terms of the enhancement, the re-use of the buildings. The enhancement process has to start off by a knowledge phase of the disused assets. The Preventive and Planned Conservation logic becomes the suitable tool to conduct an analysis of the buildings from different points of view (such as historical, architectural and state of decay) and it prepares the ground for the maintenance interventions planning. The use of this instrument would allow the local authorities to plan economic and technical management of their abandoned assets and to lay the groundwork for starting an enhancement process.

In the recent last few decades the changing of needs and demands of public administration has been leading to a progressive abandonment and an underutilization of the public real estate. At the same time, local authorities have to manage additional assets because of the divestment process related to the implementation of the “Federalismo Demaniale” law. The needs to incur costs related to the maintenance and the management of abandoned buildings, as well as to provide new ways to use them, represent some critical issues for the local public administrations. However, many of these public assets could be used as strategic items in the enhancement process of the cities (Manzo, 2005). Indeed, these assets provide significant opportunities for city enhancement thanks to their strategic geographical locations and their architectural and cultural characteristics. The abandonment condition, caused by the long lead times needed for the activation and the development of the enhancement processes, increases the degree of decay of this public real estate and its maintenance costs. Concurrently, it decreases the possibility to make cost-effective maintenance interventions and in general it reduces the possibility to plan, in terms of the enhancement, the re-use of the buildings. The enhancement process has to start off by a knowledge phase of the disused assets. The Preventive and Planned Conservation logic becomes the suitable tool to conduct an analysis of the buildings from different points of view (such as historical, architectural and state of decay) and it prepares the ground for the maintenance interventions planning. The use of this instrument would allow the local authorities to plan economic and technical management of their abandoned assets and to lay the groundwork for starting an enhancement process.